frustration with Swiss Air
hihe...@gmail.com
Hello all,
Need to vent for a moment as my upcoming trip to Europe has been nothing but frustrating.
I booked my air travel from ABQ to Chicago, landing in Zurich through Viking. I contacted United several weeks ago and new I had everything in place. What I didn’t realize at that time is the 2nd leg of my United reservation is operated by Swiss Air. When I realized this, I contacted Swiss Air to determine what I needed to do to have Georgia accompany me.
Can I just say, I travel quite often and Swiss Air has the worst process for Service Dogs as it is handled by the documents department with no human that one can have contact with in that department. Their process is you e-mail them, the put something in their computer and you need to contact the general Swiss air representative back who will look at the computer and see what the status is, and what, if anything is incorrect. OMG it is like playing telephone! The documents department put something in the representative interprets it, reports to me, and I submit whatever needs correction to this e-mail and then I call the representative again. I have spent in excess of 8 hours, with at least 9 phone calls over the past 8 days to have this resolve.
Now, I am a pretty frequent flier so I am not new to airline travel. It started with a 6 digit key, that no one told me about. It would have been nice if I got an e-mail outlining what that key was and where to get it, but I needed to call Swiss air and inquire as to the status. However they will not process this request without the 6 digit key even if your confirmation numbers, flight numbers etc. are included. Their service dog request form is quite long because it includes several languages, so I had my husband complete it and add this 6 digit key. I Submitted it and contacted the general representative after giving the documents department some time to process it. This time it was that the names on my documents and the name on the reservation didn’t match. So I had my guide dog school send me an updated my letter of ADI compliance with the exact name that is on my passport. It was still rejected. Took another call or two to realize that they coded the passenger as my husband and not me, even though all the submitted documentation was from me. Thought everything was done but they wanted a copy of both DOT forms. Now mind you I had already submitted them to United and this was on the same confirmation code. So I submit them. I did make a mistake with the relief attestation form in that I put the air time for both flights, not just the Swiss air. When we were informed about that change, It was quickly corrected and sent back to them. At least 2 additional times when I called, they told me they didn’t receive the forms. Took a deep breath resubmitted them. I called them on Friday and was told that I had been approved. Ok Finally! NO, I shouldn’t have gotten that excited as I received an e-mail this morning, actually from a real person, tell me that they required the DOT forms. Did you hear me scream! I submitted the forms to that e-mail and after a couple of hours decided to call their general number. They are telling me it was approved and to disregard the e-mail I received this morning.
I have said to several representatives that the feeling they are leaving me with is that Swiss air does not want to transport Service dogs..
Now I have to deal with the count down on the APHIS form. It was submitted by my vet, but my husband purchased a 2 day FedEx label instead of an overnight shortening the window by another day. Because of the way the calendar fell, I have 7 days from today to receive the documentation which I will need to forward to the cruise line. If anyone knows of the direct line to Aphis that handles New Mexico, I would greatly appreciate it. I had a very bad experience on a past trip , and that along with the Swiss Air problems, and the fact that my vet is out of the country on a cruise, my anxiety level is quite high.
Luckily my flights from Amsterdam to the United States are all United.
When I read the Swiss Air website on Service Dogs or other animals, their policy is that you need to fly back to the united states to only a few airports, and of course, my layover was not at one of those airports. I posted about this on a Facebook some service dog users stated that had tried to convince Swiss Air that this was not a requirement to no satisfaction. I was very glad that my flights home are all United.
.
Bryan Gearry
They have to be related to Delta! I just went through the same thing except for having to re-enter to a certain location. Have repeatedly tried to communicate to Delta's special services (who handles animals) and got no where. The Delta agents got the same canned generic response. I tried 4 different agents and all had the same problem. There is nothing in Delta's web site that addresses the need for all this extra paperwork (to and from). The agents could not understand any of this either and they are the accessibility folks. I finally gave up. Of course they took my money and gave me a credit. I will attempt this in the spring. I think there is a couple of challenges. 1. International and 2. Duration of flight. I have taken my all Guide Dogs to Europe since 2011 and never had any issues. I feel your pain!
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Heidi Vandewinckel
On Sep 22, 2025, at 4:38 PM, Bryan Gearry <bge...@alaskafrontier.net> wrote: